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Western Spirits Beverage Company is a bit of an upstart in the world of Bourbon and American Whiskey. Founded in 2008 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, they focus on a vision to build unique, innovative spirit brands. And we’re lucky they did. They’ve developed a tidy range of Bourbons, American Whiskies, and even Moonshine brands to fit every palate and price point.
As with the vast majority of newer producers, their base spirits are sourced. But that’s not completely fair in this case since they are not simply buying excess inventory and remnants. Instead, Western Spirits has partnered with The Bardstown Bourbon Company — one of the newest most modern distilleries in the US that has built an exemplary reputation for itself for quality and consistency. The new partnership means that Bardstown will do the distilling to Western’s specifications. That’s a much better arrangement for quality production.
Named after a famous Kentucky farm known for producing eight Kentucky Derby winners — two of which that went on to with the Triple Crown — Western Spirit’s top-of-the-line spirit brand is Calumet Bourbon. All three of Calumet’s signature offerings are really superior products. Calumet 12 Bourbon is what they call “single rack black.” That means that each small batch release is comprised of hand-selected twelve-year-old casks from a single rack of barrels in the center of the storage rick-house known to have ideal temperature and humidity characteristics for aging Bourbon.
The traditional mash bill of corn, rye, and malted barley is aged in well-toasted casks — with a deep #4 char — accounting for the natural dark color and slight smokiness on the palate. It’s also bottled at a perfect 47% ABV to pack in the flavor. But whatever the secret is, this Bourbon is superior from its lovely bottle to the golden mahogany color to its spot-on flavor profile.